[T]he problem is the CIA is not equipped to do hostile interrogations. Let me put the word torture nicely, hostile interrogations. It's filled with liberal arts majors who go out and collect intelligence without coercion.

So 9/11 comes along. The White House is desperate to do something. It turns to the CIA…So, guys, like you and me, will go out and then all we know about torture is we watch "24," and suddenly, these guys are put on the line and they improvise and they use mock executions. They threaten mothers and children and the rest of it. And it looks like the amateur hour because it is the amateur hour. (emphasis ours)

[The CIA] didn't have a playbook. They had never done anything like this. They didn't have the people, they didn't have the translators, they didn't have interrogators, they were being asked to do something they'd never done before, and they improvised. And the result of that improvisation was a series of legally dubious memos saying essentially: "There is no law in this matter." (emphasis ours)

Weiner contrasts the CIA's lack of experience in interrogations with the FBI, which has been interrogating terrorism suspects since World War I. He also points out that when the approximately 1,000 FBI agents went to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo after 9/11 and saw what the CIA was doing, they immediately reported the torture to then-FBI Director Robert Muller. (Muller later testified that he pulled his agents out of the interrogations "to protect them from legal consequences.")

Orders that clearly came from the highest levels in government essentially told the CIA it was okay to torture and abuse detainees, and the CIA followed orders. Which is why it's crucial that accountability for torture must include an investigation of all the players involved, not just the interrogators. Clearly, CIA interrogators didn't wake up one morning and decide to start waterboarding a compliant detainee.